


the bible didn't mention us

by metalsuit



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), intimate hair cutting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 16:36:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20085373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metalsuit/pseuds/metalsuit
Summary: Barnes is standing there when she falls out of the portal (alone, and she expected that but it still stings), and he catches her.She looks up at him, feeling a small smile try to break onto her face. "He says we won," she tells him, and it has to be true if he's here, but she wants to hear it from someone other than the vigilante.





	the bible didn't mention us

**Author's Note:**

> WELL HERE Y'ALL GO. hope this is okay! i'm so nervous about my nat voice, goddddd

Steve brings her back. 

Barnes is standing there when she falls out of the portal (alone, and she expected that but it still stings), and he catches her. 

She looks up at him, feeling a small smile try to break onto her face. "He says we won," she tells him, and it has to be true if he's  _ here _ , but she wants to hear it from someone other than the vigilante. 

Barnes smiles at her, nodding. His hands are gentle on her arms, leading her away from the portal, from the noise. Bruce (Professor Hulk) is saying something, but he ignores it, watching her. "We won," he agrees. 

She nods, looking around the clearing. "How?" she asks, and she's asking about Thanos, can't say anything else—

"Danvers," he says. "Stark tried—he got all the stones and as he snapped she… absorbed the radiation, I think. No idea how it happened." He smiles a little. "He's in medical right now, and she's taking a break to be with her…" He trails off. 

Natasha nods, not looking at him, instead watching the treeline. "Her family," she finishes, and the words taste bitter in her mouth, ash. She looks at him. "What about Barton?" 

"Back with his wife, I suppose," he says. "He ran out of here as soon as Stark was stable, said he had some work to do."

She nods, keeping her lips pressed together. "Right," she says. He hasn't abandoned her; you can't abandon the dead, but she'd still like to punch him for it. 

Bucky bumps her shoulder with his metal arm, and it's gentle but still reverberates through her skin. "Hey," he says quietly. "He doesn't know you're alive." 

She nods again, feeling something like a bobblehead, a doll. "I made the right call," she says. "Me instead of him." 

"He'd disagree," Bucky says, looking up at the sky, light filtering in through the trees. He sighs. "Can I make you a cup of tea?" 

_ Would you disagree? _ she thinks, but she doesn't want the answer to that, not really. 

She nods, and follows him inside. 

She keeps her hands tightly wrapped around the mug, staring off into nothing. Barnes— _ Bucky _ , he tells her, again, but the name feels foreign and familiar in a way she doesn't deserve —lets her have her silence, sitting with her, his legs pulled up under him. 

She appreciates it. 

"I was dead," she tells him, finally taking a sip of her tea. It's still warm, miraculously. 

"Yeah," Barnes agrees. When she looks at him, he's smiling like he understands. 

Maybe he does. 

She smirks a little, though it's a poor imitation. "And now I'm here," she continues, and waves a hand around. "And I don't…" 

The silence continues between them, for as long as she waits. She's not used to silence, or she's too used to it. 

"I don't know what to do to be worthy of that," she says finally, staring at a spot on the table, not blinking lest the few tears in her eyes fall.

Barnes nods, and slowly, like she’d snap his wrist if he went too fast, reaches out his hand to rest on top of hers. "That's okay," he says, and it feels like comfort. 

She acclimates, slowly. 

She takes one of Tony's suits to go visit Clint; it's faster than a plane and she's never trusted them anyway. (He didn't give permission, as such, but Pepper whispered  _ go ahead _ and winked at her.) 

When she lets the suit fall to the ground, Clint stares at her like he's seen a ghost. 

"Nat?" he whispers, and then he's hugging her, clinging to her, face pressed against her shoulder. 

She's never been very good at comfort, but she holds him right back. "I'm alive," she tells him, and it's been nearly a week but it still feels like the ghost of a lie. "Ta-da." 

Clint presses their foreheads together, hands on her cheeks. "I'm sorry," he starts. "It should…"

"Shut up," she tells him, keeping her eyes closed. She doesn't need to say it, not after all they’ve been through, but—"I chose it. You didn't." 

Clint nods sharply, once. "Yeah," he says, so much like Bucky's voice. "Still." 

She grins. "Still," she agrees, pulling back. The smile is false, forced, but Clint's kind enough to not comment. 

He clings to her, and his hands are shaking. 

She doesn't know what to do with this coursing through her, the soft nameless regret. "Think Laura'll let me stay for dinner?" 

Clint smiles back at her, still watching her face like she's not there. "She'd better," he tells her. 

(She does, of course, and Nat listens to all of them tell their stories of reacclimating to the world—even the kids, who have a clearer understanding of what happened than she ever would have expected. 

_ It's like I was dead and then I wasn't _ , Lila tells her, and it hits her so sharply that for a moment she can't breathe—

And then it passes, and she's here, and she listens.) 

Bucky is waiting for her when she gets back. She steps out of the suit and walks into the kitchen and there he is, tea in front of him and one at her spot on the table. 

It's mostly them here; Steve's still out saving the world and Bucky—well, he doesn't seem to have much. 

She smiles at him, and it feels right, more sure than with Clint. "Think I gave him a heart attack," she tells him, sitting down at her spot, legs up on the table. 

"Agent Romanoff, stopping hearts even beyond the grave," he tells her, and it startles a laugh, a real laugh out of her. 

When she looks at him again, he's watching her. "So Barton's okay?" he asks. 

She shrugs. "I think so. He seemed happy. He got his family back." She smiles, running her thumbnail over the rim of the mug. 

"Steve told me you two…" 

She makes a face. "Oh, you're gonna have to get me at least three drinks deep before you get me talking about that," she tells him, giving him as stern a look as she can manage. 

Bucky just watches her. "You break his heart?" he asks. 

She shakes her head. "No broken hearts," she says, looking into the liquid, knee bouncing. It's not true, not really, but—it's true enough. 

"Okay," he says softly, and nudges her foot under the table, and that's that. 

She really does think it's over, that he won't ask again. 

When he shows up at her bedroom door two nights later with a handle of vodka, she's less surprised than she'd expect. 

"You ready to talk?" he asks, and he's smirking, eyebrow cocked like he knows the answer. 

(It's strange, knowing that he knows this,  _ anything _ , about her, but it makes her less nervous than it does with anyone else. 

Maybe that means something, but it probably doesn't.) 

"Fine," she says, opening the liquor and taking a long gulp, keeping her eyes on his. She shoves her door open, sitting on the ground and watching him. 

He laughs, sitting across from her, leaning against the wall. "Didn't expect you to agree," he tells her. 

She hums, keeping the vodka in her lap. "You're annoying enough that I think you'll just keep asking until I tell you," she says. 

Bucky nods. "Unless you asked me not to," he says softly. 

That—is something she can't handle, so she takes another long gulp, wincing when it goes down. "This is terrible, by the way," she tells him. 

Bucky laughs, leaning his head back against the wall. "Short notice, and I'm technically a felon. Don't think I can leave." 

She narrows her eyes at him. "I'm sure we can get that fixed," she tells him. 

Bucky shrugs. "It's alright, I don't mind being stuck out here," he says. "Gives me a chance to reacclimate, doesn't it?" 

She nods, slow. "Yeah," she says, watching his face for another long second. Then she takes a breath, and says, “Clint and I were together, for a while.” She shrugs. “Then he found Laura.” 

Bucky nods, looking at her consideringly for a long second. “And you’re happy for him,” he murmurs. 

“I am,” she says. She smiles ruefully. “Wish I’d found my Laura, is all.” She tugs her legs up to her chest, murmuring, “And if you tell anyone that, I’ll kick your ass.” 

Bucky laughs, shaking his head. “You won’t,” he tells her easily, stretching his leg out so he can almost nudge his toes against hers. “I won’t, either.” 

“Yeah,” she says, and she tries not to let the smile creep onto her face. 

“You’ll find ‘em,” Bucky says after a minute. “Now that you’re alive again… would’ve been difficult while you were dead.” 

She snorts. “Might be harder than normal, actually,” she says. “The reason—part of the reason he went with Laura was because I can’t have kids.” She swallows, looking down at the ground. “And I know he’s not the only one out there who would, so…” 

“You could adopt,” Bucky says quietly.

“I’m wanted in nearly every country,” she says wryly, taking another long drink from the bottle. “It wouldn’t be that easy.” 

“What about a fake name? Steve told me…” he trails off. 

She shakes her head. “I wouldn’t want my kids to have to lie for me,” she says, and there, now that it’s out there, it feels awful, like a secret she immediately wants to take back. Still, she presses on. “I want them to know who I am. Who I really am.” 

Bucky nods, and the look on his face is so earnest that it makes her chest hurt; she has to look away from him. “I think you’ll get that, someday,” he tells her. “If you want it.” 

She closes her eyes, leaning back against the side of her bed. “Yeah,” she sighs, head tilting to the side, cheek resting on her shoulder. There’s more, more that he isn’t understanding,  _ how could I be a parent when I didn’t have any? _ , but—she reminds herself, if anyone’s likely to understand, he is. 

“Thank you,” she says, after a long silence has passed between them. She sits up properly. “Want to watch something downstairs? Stark’s still knocked out, don’t think he’ll be there now.” 

Bucky smiles, a little half-smirk. “Yeah,” he tells her. 

  
  


"I don't know how to be who I was," Bucky tells her one day, while he cooks—something, Natasha isn't sure, but it smells fucking delicious. 

"You just keep going, I think," she tells him, legs curled up under her, chin in her hand. "You go until you can't, and that's who you are." 

“Profound,” Bucky says, and winks at her. 

For a second, it’s like before; he looks like he did before time and blood. It’s a face Natasha doesn’t know well, but sometimes (on her loneliest nights) wishes she does. 

Then she laughs, and he turns away, and the moment is broken.

  
  


She’s half asleep when her phone buzzes under her pillow. 

She jumps and squints at it. A message from Bucky:  _ need to talk to you _ . 

She starts typing her response-- _ a booty call? at this hour? _ \--but hears a knock before she can finish it. 

“Come in,” she says, sitting up, quickly tying her hair in a braid to the side. 

Bucky pushes the door open. He leans against the frame, smiling at her, though it looks nervous. “I need to talk,” he says. 

“So I saw,” she tells him, tucking her arm behind her head and leaning back. “What do you need?”

Bucky stays where he’s standing, shifting from one foot to the other. “Would you call me James?” he asks. 

Her heart clenches, but she tries not to let it show. She nods, instead. “James,” she repeats. 

She watches as he relaxes at the name. “Thank you.”

She nods. “Of course,” she says quietly, smiling at him again. 

James stays there for another long second, heading out of her room with a slap to the doorframe and the quiet click of her door behind him. 

She frowns, but doesn’t bother him; she trusts that if he needed to be with someone, he’d tell her. 

An hour later, when she’s still awake, she sends him a text:  _ thank you for telling me, James _ . 

She doesn’t get a response, but she doesn’t need one. 

"I want you to cut my hair," James says one day, when they're done sparring, relaxing on the side of the gym. 

She looks over, giving him a startled look. "Are you sure?" she asks. "You almost tore Steve's arm off." 

James nods, once, and doesn't look at her. His metal hand clenches on his thigh; she knows him well enough now to know it's nerves, not anger. "I didn't trust him not to nick me," he says. 

He doesn't say the rest, the unspoken  _ I trust you _ , but Natasha feels it, nodding once and standing up. "I've never cut hair before," she says. 

James grins at her, watching her like he does, these days, like he's awed by her. "You can learn," he tells her. 

He's shaking, when they finally get around to the haircut. 

Natasha rests her hands on his shoulders, watching him in the mirror of the bathroom. "I won't hurt you," she says. 

James nods, "I know," and he closes his eyes. 

Natasha has to take a deep, steadying breath. She doesn't know what to do with this trust; she doesn't deserve it, is more of a killer than the  _ Winter Soldier _ himself, and yet. 

He's taken his trust and put it in her blood-stained hands, and it's all she can do to keep it from falling. 

"I'm gonna start now," she tells him, and her voice feels distant, far-away. 

James nods. "Yeah," he says, going quiet and tilting his head down for her. "I want it like before, like…" 

"I know," she says, and she does. 

It's harder than she expected to get everything even, but James sits still for her, tilting his head every time her fingers nudge against his cheek. He keeps his eyes closed the entire time, and she can see his lips moving. 

She sighs when she's done, looking at him in the mirror for a long second. "You're on your own with styling," she tells him, smirking a little. "All I know how to do is a braid." 

James opens his eyes and grins at her. He shakes his head like he's trying to get hair out of his face, but there's nothing there anymore. 

He studies himself in the mirror for a long second. His face is unreadable (and Natasha didn't think there was a person alive she couldn't read). 

"Do you like it?" she finally asks, heart skittering in her chest. 

James smiles at her, and he looks  _ young _ , like the pictures in his dossier, the ones Steve keeps in his room, the ones she’s snuck in to look at more than once. "Yeah," he says, and then, "thank you." 

"Don't mention it," she says, ducking her head down, and she almost feels herself blush. 

There’s a hand on her arm, then, and after a breath she looks at him. She’s surprised to see him so close, but the surprise is distant; why wouldn’t he be? 

When he kisses her, it feels easy, natural, like the first breath after waking up. 

She slips his arm around his waist, sighing softly once he’s pulled back. 

“Yeah?” James whispers.

Instead of answering she kisses him again, letting her arm slip up further his back, tentatively touching the back of his neck. 

He presses closer at that, trembling. 

“I’ve got you,” she breathes. It’s as though the words are magic; he relaxes into her touch almost immediately, kissing her again. 

There’s that trust again. She has no idea why she deserves it, what he sees in her beyond  _ killer _ , but that will come with time. 

For once, she’s hopeful. 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm nothalfasgood on twitter :)


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